The Watchman On The Wall

Eph 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Verse 13 Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

Friday, June 9, 2017

Did Ransom Money and Iranians Cause The Qatar Crisis To Deepen?

Above, Qatari leader and Emir Tamim bin Hamad al Thani. Above, a supermarket in Qatar. Some supermarkets in
Doha have almost run out of dairy products as scores of people waited in
checkout lines and stocked up on beans and other staples.The rift has provoked
confusion and anxiety in Qatar, an energy, banking and construction hub, which
is home to 2.7 million people -- most of them foreigners. Some Qataris were
outraged by the state of affairs.Authorities tried to
calm nerves on Wednesday, releasing a video showing a shop with shelves
brimming with food and reassuring Qataris - the wealthiest people in the world
per capita - that their quality of life would not be hit.But the row over
Qatar's support for Islamist groups has disrupted many aspects of life.Thousands of Qataris
have been unable to board flights to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, and cut
off from relatives in those countries, in a region where cross-border marriages
are common and Gulf rulers refer to each other as "brothers".In further signs of
Qatar's isolation on Thursday, the United Arab Emirates' national postal group
said it had suspended all services to Qatar and the UAE aviation authority said
it had closed air space for traffic to and from Doha."My mother who
is originally from the UAE cannot visit her sick mother, needless to say we
will not be able to see my uncles," said Mohammed, a Qatar University
professor, who gave his first name only.He said a Saudi
friend of his living in Qatar had sent his child to Riyadh for a family visit
before the embargo and now he does not know what to do. Qatari students in the
UAE and Saudi Arabia have been told to leave before finishing exams, he said."The issue is presented to the West as a diplomatic
spat ... the reality is far worse," a Qatari diplomat said. "It is a
blockade! Like that of Berlin. A declaration of war. A political, economic and
social aggression."Even if the dispute
is settled, Qataris and other Gulf Arabs worry that the bitter spat which has
seen both sides denounce each other as "enemies" and
"traitors" of the Gulf has sown divisions and hostility that will
linger on."I think it is three things we are scared of: family
ties being severed, possible military action and losing the spirit of the Gulf
Cooperation Council," said Mohammed, the professor, referring to the
regional political and economic union set up in 1981.Slogans against and
in support of Qatar in Arabic have dominated Twitter, which is hugely popular
in the region, and have grown steadily more nationalistic and aggressive in
tone.The fact that Qatar's
leader, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, has yet to speak publicly since ties
were cut, has made some Qataris uneasy. Kuwait's ruler, who is mediating in the
crisis, asked him to postpone a speech to the nation earlier this week to give
dialogue efforts a chance."Of course we
are all waiting for him to speak," said Sara al-Sulaiti, a Qatari who
works in public relations."The emir is
wise not to speak," said Faraj, a Qatari engineer working for a
telecommunications company. "We know that he has a plan for us. Unlike in
our neighboring countries we have deep faith in our leaders."For low-income
foreign laborers, the biggest concerns are possible food price rises and job
cuts if projects are stalled because of construction materials being held up at
the Saudi border.Qatar is home to more
than a million migrant laborers from countries including India, Nepal and
Bangladesh, many of whom for around 1,000 riyals ($275) a month toil on
construction projects including football stadiums and a metro system being
built for the 2022 World Cup."I have never
seen Qatari citizens stocking up on frozen chicken and long-life milks,"
said Anup Manoj, an Indian man who works as a cleaner in Doha's City Center
Mall, where many shops no longer stock milk packaged by Saudi Arabia's Almarai
Co, the most affordable kind of milk in Qatar."They have money
to stock up. But when they stock up it's laborers and lower income workers who
are going to suffer."

Apparently what Trump and the
Saudis discussed is having a “huge” impact in the Persian Gulf States, Qatar in
particular. Did Trump open the door and offer no objection to Saudi Arabia and its allies to act against Qatar? As the Qatar crisis escalates it could further de-stabilize the volatile Middle East.

Saudi Arabia and its allies
continued to ratchet up the rhetoric against Qatar today with theannouncement of a
new Qatar-specific terrorism list,claiming
that the new list proves Qatar isn’t fighting against terrorism, as it has
publicly promised, but is instead secretly supporting terrorism.

The list includes 59 people and 12
entities. The list includes at least two people who are accused of being
terrorist financiers, and both of whom Qatar had already imposed sanctions
against themselves. Among the rest of the people on the list, only a handful
are actually from Qatar, with many of them people from Egypt, Libya, and
Bahrain.

Though a lot of the details about what
the people on the list are accused of are unclear, the list appears to be heavy
on members of the Muslim Brotherhood, who are vilified in Egypt
for being part of the elected government the military junta ousted, and
Bahraini Shi’ites, who the Bahrain royal family are mad at for demanding equal
rights.

Tensions between Qatar and the rest of the
GCC center heavily on Qatar’s state media supporting calls for democratic
reforms during the Arab Spring, something which didn’t sit well with the Saudis
or the other Gulf Arab states. This is a continuation of the effort to rebrand
such support as tantamount to supporting terrorism.

Qatar has stated that Sheikh Tamim did not make statementslast month, in which he allegedly said there
was “no wisdom in harboring hostility toward Iran.”

Yesterday’s24-hour ultimatumby Saudi Arabia requiring Qatar to
make massive changes to their foreign policy and shut down their state media
forever has come and gone, with Qatari officials insisting that there will be
“no surrender” amid the ongoing dispute andthat they won’t
compromise their sovereignty.

Saudi
Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain all severed ties with
Qatar several days ago, with the split heavily centered around long-standing
resentment of Qatar’s state media backing democratic reform during the Arab
Spring.

Qatar’s Foreign Minister Sheikh
Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thanitoday made clear
that they are totally unwilling to changetheir foreign policy position over the
ongoing blockade by the Saudis and their allies, and that they are prepared to
live under embargo forever, noting they have the backing of the rest of the
international community.

The Saudi demands sought Qatar to agree
to wholesale changes in their foreign policy as well as to make a public,
irrevocable pledge to always take the foreign policy position consistent with
the GCC, which is generally just the position of the Saudi kingdom.

Qatar’s
positions are generally not wildly different from some other GCC member
nations, though they have the most in common Oman. The demands to sever all
ties with Iran and expel everyone that the Saudis believe are “hostile” to the
GCC would be a dangerous precedent to set, and Oman and Kuwait are both trying
to help negotiated some sort of solution short of this total surrender.

And
while President Trump made a point of praising the Saudi move against Qatar
initially, he too is now offering to negotiate a deal.

There
is still no indication of what the Saudis intend to do about Qatar ignoring the
ultimatum, but some predicted yesterday that they would respond with a military
invasion. It seems Saudi Arabia views itself now as the big bully in the
region.

Rumors about a massive $1 billion ransom payment made by the Qatari
government to recover a large number of hostages held in Iraq have been
floating around for months. The sudden split between Qatar and a number of
other regional powers has brought it back to the fore, however, withEgypt calling for a
UN inquiry into the allegation.

It’s
never been publicly disclosed how much they paid as part of the negotiations,
but speculation was that it was a significant amount, in the tens of millions
of dollars by most estimates. Few people believe that the entire $1 billion
ransom was paid.

Any ransom at all being paid is now an
issue Egypt and other nations angry at Qatar are trying to use as a sign that
they were “appeasing” terrorists and ended up funding them to the tune of a lot
of money. That said, payments of ransoms
for high-value hostages have been common in Iraq and Syria during the war on
terror, and Qatar is hardly alone in biting the bullet and getting people
released. It’s an issue that likely would not be an issue but for the unrelated
tension ongoing.

American analysts published an opinion piece in Newsweek
magazine raising fears of
American presence so close to the Islamist Hamas group in Doha.

“A massive air base, Al Udeid… has become crucial
to our forward operations in the Middle East against ISIS, Al-Qaeda and other
terrorist groups,” Kate Havard, a research analyst at Foundation for Defense of
Democracies and its Vice President for Research Jonathan Schanzer,wrote
in Newsweekon May 11.

“The insanity of this arrangement is highlighted by
the fact that the base is essentially down the street from the hotel were Hamas
is headquartered and a stone’s throw from the Taliban’s ‘non-embassy,’” Havard
and Schanzerwrote.

Doha
is home base for many Hamas’ political figures and the city welcomed its former
leader Khaled Meshaal in 2012 after the latter fell out with Assad’s policies
during the Syrian civil war, prompting him to close down Hamas’ headquarters in
Damascus. Below, a photo of Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.